With storage capabilities struggling to keep up with the growth of data, the majority of CIOs and other organizational leaders are reassessing their data storage approaches and strategies, according to a recent survey from SUSE. The resulting report, "Numbers Tell Stories," indicates that most IT decision-makers are concerned that data growth may cause storage issues that will stall digital transformation initiatives. They're also worried that storage costs will rise dramatically as capacity requirements increase. Given this, most said their company is moving toward the adoption of software-defined storage. Through SDS, virtualization separates storage hardware from the software that manages it, enabling IT departments to pursue the provisioning and management of data storage independently of hardware. In the process, companies simplify storage processes and reduce expenses, while boosting collaboration, innovation and flexibility. "In today's economy, every company is essentially a data storage company," said Joseph George, SUSE vice president of Solution Strategy. Organizations "are archiving email, distributing large video files and are now starting to store petabytes of data, often for years due to record retention policies and regulatory requirements. Storage is at an inflection point where traditional … approaches are being reevaluated in light of growing data demands and more scalable, affordable options. Fortunately, there is a steady stream of innovation coming from the open-source community to help enterprises ease cost and implementation frustrations." More than 1,200 global IT decision-makers took part in the research, which was conducted by Loudhouse.